But what do we mean
by that & are we, actually, being honest anyway? Are we well? Or has the
question just become an unmeaning social construct, as simple as shaking hands?
What would you do if you asked someone and they actually said that they weren't
actually feeling so good … ?

And what does it
mean to be 'well' anyway? Let's think about wellbeing in three different areas:

The most obvious
one, the one definition of wellbeing that is, certainly, the oldest and most
often discussed:

Physical
Wellbeing

To be physically
well is, I would think, a fairly obvious one. To not be ill. To not have a
cold, or illness. We all know how we feel when we go down with something, be it
a cold, flu, or something more serious. We know, at this level, when we are not
physically well. And we have no problem seeking out help and support from
professionals about this. And even to physical injury; it is clear and obvious
when you have damaged something because you will probably be wearing some form
of support, or showing a limp, etc.

The thing is, with
physical wellbeing, on the surface, it is pretty clear whether you are well or
not. And when you're not, you will most likely be quick to seek help and
support.

Or is it? There is
another level of physical wellbeing that is less obvious - the healthy
lifestyle part of it. Are you well, in terms of eating healthy food, drinking
enough water, not eating or drinking stuff you shouldn’t (like energy drinks),
etc? Sandymoor is a Healthy School - we have a certificate & badge to show
that we care about things like this. That is why we have banned pot noodles
& similar foods in school; they are not healthy. They do not do you any
good. And it's why we are continually going on about getting you to bring in
bottles for water. Drinking water through the day is healthy. It contributes to
you being well . . .

If all you eat is
chocolate, sweets, crisps and junk like this, or have too much salt on your
food, or drink energy drinks, then you are, in fact, simple, hard fact,
damaging your inner body - causing damage to organs that are still growing and
developing; organs that you need to be working well for the next 80+ years.

And healthy, active
lifestyles are important too. All the research shows that we need to get our
bodies active and working hard on a regular basis, to keep, in particular, our
lungs and heart working well, It is important to get out of breath and sweaty on
a regular basis, through exercise. Again, because if you don't, your heart
& lungs are weakened & you need these to work well through your whole
life. . .

But Physical
wellbeing is only part of the story too. As a school, we have put the next
category in as equally important:

Academic
Wellbeing

This one doesn't
appear in any lists on wellbeing youcan
find on the internet, but as a school, we do believe it is important that you
are 'well' academically. Succeeding in school, achieving the subjects and the grades
you want &/or need, tasking responsibility for your learning and pushing
yourself now, is an important element of your wellbeing. Now and into the
future.

There is a direct
link between how you achieve in school and elements of your future life
success; Being successful in school, getting good grades has clear links to
better jobs and salaries in the future. And better jobs lead to better
lifestyles, with more choice for you.

But beyond that, we
are trying to give you the skills to be hungry to learn new things, to be able
to seek out new information and do something with it. To, in effect, be able to
survive the changing world we live in, where there will be, for example, jobs
you will be able to apply for that no-one in the world has yet imagined.

Doing well at school
is a very important part of being well overall. We want you to be, to aspire to
become the very best you can, but that requires you to have a positive attitude
to that as well - education, school, doesn't happen to you, you need to participate
and seize the opportunities we provide. You need to be hungry to get from us
the most you can, so you can be the best you can be.

You must want to
become better. But that rests on the last, and quite possibly, most important,
aspect of wellbeing:

Emotional
Wellbeing

Being emotionally
'well' is more complex than both the other categories put together and is much
harder to define. It is also the newest of the wellbeing elements. There are
still some people who deny emotional wellbeing is an issue anyhow - the
old-school mentality of stiff upper lip, or just plough on and get on with
things anyhow. The mental 'slap on the bottom'.

But study after
study shows that mental wellbeing, emotional resilience, self-awareness and
self-confidence are all keys to success and wellbeing overall. You can be a
straight A student, in the peak of physical condition, but still not be well if
you are not in control of your emotions or mental state.

And there is so much
in this area that we do not have the time to go through. But . . .

Emotional wellbing
is about being happy with yourself. Because of who you are, not because someone
else wants you to be something. And that can be a friend (although I would not
call someone who is only nice to you if you behave or look a certain way a friend
anyhow…), or the pressures of media, from the celebrities and superstars
through all the channels of social media.

Emotional wellbeing
is about accepting who you are. You are good enough and you do deserve to be
happy. You do not depend on others, or things, to be good enough. Accepting you
for who you are, looking in the mirror and liking what you see.

Emotional wellbeing
is about being in charge. Do not let anyone else control you, put you down or
stop you doing what you believe in. They are not a friend and are not someone
to listen to.

Emotional wellbeing
is about being resilient. In a world with anytime, anywhere access, where we
expect to get things now, rather than have to wait, it can be difficult to
believe, but things worth having are worth waiting for. You cannot be
everything you aspire to right here, right now. You need to work at it,
persevere and keep trying. There's a great phrase that says if you have not
failed, you've never tried to do something worthwhile, because things
worthwhile are hard.

So, are you well?
The good news is that you are in control. If you are well, in all areas, then
go you! Hats off to you! You have achieved it all; Can you please tell me
(& everyone else) how you did it? And write a book about it - there are
literally hundreds, if not thousands, or books out there on how to be happy. .
.

But if you're like
the rest of us, struggling in one, or even all three, of these areas, then that
is absolutely fine - you're human and alive. And in control. The trick is to
sit down and work out what you are not happy about and then do something about
it. And remember that you don't have to ever do it alone. It is not a failure
to admit that you need help, in any of these areas. After all, as I said, we
will all seek help in the first category - Physical Wellbeing. Why not in the
other two?

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

This week's assembly was on the topic of collaboration and working together:

There's
a phrase that has been around since forever; one that comes up time and time
again, but probably most recently in the popular media through the US version
of the X factor. You may remember (if you watch it) the girl group - Fifth
Harmony?

The
phrase is :We're better together

And
it doesn't matter that it's so well known, so 'true' that we tend to ignore it.
In fact, it is the most important concept out there & is, in fact, even
more fundamental to the school's ethos than my usual mantra of 'Respect' &
trust …

Because
the fact is we are not alone, we do not work, we could not survive, if we were
truly alone. No one person could live a modern life, with all its trimmings, on
their own - no one person can know the sum totality of human knowledge, from
medicine to engineering to agriculture.

We
rely on others all the time. We are a social animal. We always have been and
always will. From the first time we came down from the trees, our distant
ancestors worked out that they could defend themselves against the wild animals
by working together & they could feed themselves better by working as a
team to hunt. Society is based on the principle of division of labour, where
different people in the group take on different roles.

We
are better together.

The
very word, society, comes from a Latin word, socii, which directly translates
to the English word - allies. People who co-operate to help a group achieve
something they could not achieve alone. Like, for example, the collection of
countries that grouped together in the first half of the 1940's to defeat Nazi
Germany.

Our
school community is a society; we work best when we work together. Like the
wider society, there's not one person who can do everything to keep the school
running smoothly & the staff all work closely together to help this. The
result is that you all have the best possible opportunity to become the very
best you can be.

And
that's the point; there's so much more in the phrase 'Better Together' than
just passively letting others get on with their lives. We have to actively work
together, co-operate and collaborate to help others be the best they can be, so
that we become the best we can be.

Collaboration
is key.

It
is also one of six identified social skills that are already crucial and will
only become more important in the work place of the future. Your workplace.

For
the record, the 6 social skills identified are:

Collaboration

Knowledge Construction

Self-regulation

Real-world problem-solving
& innovation

The use of ICT

Skilled
communication

But collaboration is the really important one.

In so many ways, we are programmed to compete, to try
to outdo each other and overcome others to be 'the best'. And I'm not saying
that competition is bad; quite the opposite - competition is a good, healthy
thing and there are loads of situations where there can be only one winner, so
to develop the skills of competition are also crucial, but we have those,
almost built into our DNA, so don't need to spend too much time on these.

The problem is when we try to compete when there is
no race, no competition to participate in. When there is no one winner, only
losers. That's when collaboration is crucial.

In the classroom, for example. Here at Sandymoor, we
have tables in clusters, where you work alongside and around colleagues. There
is no competition there; or at least there shouldn't be… If someone on your
table doesn't know something, there is nothing to be gained from gloating and
letting them struggle, whereas if you help them, they can then carry on and
learn and grow. And the flip side? Well, when you need help because you don't
understand something, they will be more inclined to help you too. As a result,
everyone gets better. Win-win, if you ask me.

There's another great phrase I use time and time
again, which also emphasises the importance of collaboration;Shoulders of giants

It dates back almost 900 years, where a French
philosopher first wrote it down, but I heard it by reading about one of my
heroes - the famous Physicist; Isaac Newton. Both used it in the same context,
to say that we can only see further, understand more, than those before us
because we are standing on their shoulders, using their knowledge and
understanding to make sense of what we are seeing. We are like dwarves, seeing
further only because we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

We become bigger, better, by working with others,
working alongside them and helping them as they help us. Our ancient ancestors
learnt that, when attacked in their caves by packs of wild animals, so why is
it sometimes so hard to do it now?

Try it.
Rather than fighting others, putting them down to
make yourself look bigger, or refusing to help someone because you don't like
them, try reaching out and helping them. At the very least, you never know when
you might need them to repay the favour.

Saturday, 11 April 2015

In the modern world,
we use technology to replace old ways of doing things all the time,from the
introduction of cordless telephones, through to mobile phones and, of course,
the replacement of the typewriter with the computer.

But as we can see
from the diagram (called the SAMR model of technology integration), simply
replacing how we've done things in the past is the lowest level of utilising
the power of modern technology.

And we can clearly
see the changes, moving towards augmentation, with text messaging, and tools
like PowerPoint changing how we present and communicate, but these are 'just'
enhancements to how things have always been done, rather than actually changing
how things are done - transformation. That's not saying that this is a bad
thing, but it is frequently cited as a reason why technology in education is
costly and has limited impact. It is only when we go into true transformation
that we can begin to see the true impact of technology on education.

At Sandymoor, we
were set up with the strap line of being a 'Fresh Approach to Education' and
everything we do is explored from the beginning, asking if this is the best way
to do something, or just the 'normal' way things are done. This has led to us
keeping a lot of things the way they are normally done - we are not into
throwing out the baby with the bath water, after all! We even have some very
traditional systems, like a house system, prefects and formal assemblies. But
where we see a benefit for doing things differently, we embrace the change, and
plan to embed the change in how we do things. The use of technology is firmly
in this bracket, because we believe that we can only prepare our students for
their future by embracing technology and transforming learning through
technology.

One of the first
things a visitor to the school notices is the fact that we don't have
traditional whiteboards on the walls and have no 'Interactive Whiteboards'
(IWBs) anywhere. This is because these tools are firmly in the bracket of
substitution (or, in the case of the outdated IWB, occasional augmentation);
from blackboard & chalk to whiteboard & pen, then to 'interactive'
whiteboard, with digital pens. And yes, students could interact with these
whiteboards, but surely that's what students have always done when asked to
come and write on the board? There is no transformation there! And there really
is no difference in a student copying out from a teacher's chalked writing or a
writing from a board pen - there is still the relatively mindless, static
copying out of information, the student passive and the teacher the active in
the act.

But from this summer
term, we are taking the transformation on to the next level. We have rolled out
digital exercise books to all students. These are in the form of OneNote
ClassBooks, integrated into our Office 365 ecosystem. Students can access their
digital exercise books from any web-enabled device, giving them full freedom to
use their own personal devices. We are enforcing a system where each student
has to bring with them a device to lessons; these can be their own device, or a
leased, or loaned device through the school, but they need to have something to
access their digital exercise book.

So, how does this
transform the learning experience? Well, the ClassBook provides a whole range
of additional ways for engagement and collaboration. First of all, the
ClassBook allows the students to add text, video and audio to their notes,
making their work much more multi-media focussed. We already have, for example,
students creating audio notes in Spanish for their homework, so they can
practice their vocabulary without being embarrassed by their peers. It also
enables teachers to provide much richer feedback; with audio notes replacing
the red (or if trendy, green) pen. It also allows students to record videos or
pictures of experiments in science, or instructions in technology.

There are also
collaboration spaces, where students can work together on projects, copying the
finished work into their own space for posterity at the end. And to cap it all,
the teacher has a whole section that becomes, in effect, a living, growing text
book, where class notes, additional material and extension work available for
all students to access.

And if a student
wants to work on paper, or forgets their device? Simple - they can quickly and
easily upload a photo of their work into their ClassBook, again keeping it for
posterity. This happens to make marking so much easier too; the teacher doesn't
have to carry home stacks of exercise books as everything is online in their
ClassBook.

So many young people
struggle with handwriting, and the handwriting becomes a barrier to learning,
something that causes barriers to go up; in these cases, the technology opens
doors for students, as opposed to closing them.

Some will say that
this is all well and good, but is at the cost of traditional skills. Not
necessarily; handwriting is still an important skill to develop and one that
the use of digital exercise books enhances, rather than degrades. This is
because we can separate the skill from the content - when handwriting is being
taught, this becomes the focus and rather than being assumed to be taught can
become something that is explicitly developed. The same for grammar and
spelling, where it can be easier to see, and correct, without impacting on the
content. The development of spelling and grammatical skills is not degraded by
the use of technology. Again, by the fact that we separate the knowledge &
understanding from the skills development, we can spend more quality time
focussing on and enhancing student understanding of the importance of grammar
& spelling.